Glossolalia : some linguistic perspectives.
Date
1972
Authors
Anderson, Frederick Roy
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Abstract
Glossolalia is a speech phenomenon that is usually heard in a religious context. Although the flow of speech has little, if any, semantic content , it usually sounds convincingly language-like. The purpose of this study is to investigate and delineate the nature of various patterns in glossolalic speech.
The corpus consists of three recordings of glossolalia made by the same speaker These have been transcribed in full and at least partially analyzed. Two of the recordings were made on the same day, the third some three months later. This study includes a fairly full analysis and description of the various phonological features in the corpus, including some detailed reference to patterns of stress and intonation. Selected aspects of morphology and syntax have also been analyzed and considered.
Although this study is primarily descriptive, it leads also to certain conclusions:
1) The speech patterns in the corpus are derived primarily from the speech patterns of the informant's native language.
2) There is some evidence of evolutionary development in glossolalic speech over a period of time.
3) There is also evidence of basic underlying patterns that persist over a period of time.